Noah’s Flood: Christian Scientists Say Manganese Nodules Found At Bottom Of Atlantic Ocean Are Proof of Biblical Great Flood

Christian scientists are claiming that mysterious manganese nodules recently discovered at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean provide clinching scientific evidence of the biblical story of Noah’s Great Flood.

In their research efforts to interpret the geological and paleontological evidence of Earth’s history, secular scientists ignore the biblical account of the Great Flood described in the Book of Genesis, while Christian scientists construct their theories on the basis of the biblical Noah’s Great Flood story.

According to the Book of Genesis, God punished sinful humanity by bringing about Noah’s Great Flood, which wiped out human and animal populations.

Christian geologists believe that Noah’s Great Flood, which purportedly occurred only a few thousands of years ago, was the cause of extinction of ancient species of life. However, secular paleontologists believe that life has existed on Earth for millions of years and that extinction and emergence of new species occurred over millions of years by a natural process of evolution and not, as Christians believe, by an act of creation that occurred at the beginning of a young Earth only about 6,000 years old.

But now, Christian scientists are challenging secular scientists by arguing that manganese balls found at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean provide scientific evidence supporting the Creation theory.

Manganese Nodules

Recently, according to LiveScience, a team of German scientists announced discovery of a dense cluster of manganese balls, some as large as bowling balls, about three miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, several hundred miles east of Barbados.

They discovered the balls accidentally while trying to scoop up marine life using nets. Further investigations revealed that the site has a dense accumulation of manganese balls.

Although such clusters have been found in the past, the most recent discovery was the largest collection ever found under the Atlantic. Scientists have long puzzled about the origin of the nodules, which they believe accumulated very slowly over millions of years. The chief scientist for the German expedition, Colin Devey, expressed surprise because they had not expected to find a large deposit of manganese nodules at the site.

“I was surprised, because this is generally not the place you think of for manganese nodules.”

However, a Christian physicist with the Institute for Creation Research, Dr. Jake Hebert, argued in an article “Manganese Nodule Discovery Points to Genesis Noah’s Flood,” published in March by the Institute of Creation Research, that the nodules provide evidence that seafloor sediment and manganese nodules were not deposited gradually over millions of years as secular scientists believe, but very rapidly over a shorter time frame, as the biblical Great Flood story requires.

“Are these nodules evidence of the Genesis Flood?” he asked.

“These metallic pellets provide strong evidence that most seafloor sediments were deposited rapidly, not slowly and gradually over millions of years.”

Hebert pointed out that contrary to the evidence of radioisotope dating methods which inform secular scientists’ belief that the nodules were deposited over millions of years, direct observation shows that manganese nodules grow very quickly in lakes and in artificial reservoirs. The nodules have also been observed growing on debris from as recent as the last two World Wars.

Manganese Nodules At The Bottom Of The Ocean

The observations, according to the Christian physicist, reveal a flaw in the radioisotope method of dating.

“Secular scientists claim that nodules grow at the extremely slow rate of just a few millimeters per million years. Yet manganese nodules have consistently been observed growing in lakes and man-made reservoirs, as well as on debris fragments from World Wars I and II, at rates hundreds of thousands of times faster than these calculated rates. This is just one more indication that there are serious problems with radioisotope dating methods!”

He said that the nodules found at the floor of the Atlantic would not be a mystery had scientists taken the biblical Great Flood story into account. He argued that the fact that the nodules were found on upper sediment layers agrees with the Genesis account of a Great Flood during which the sediments were deposited very quickly before the rate of deposition slowed down to presently observed rates.

According to Hebert, “In the millennia after the Flood, sediment deposition would have eventually slowed to today’s ‘slow and gradual’ rates. Hence, nodules are found mainly in the uppermost sediment layers because these upper layers were deposited slowly enough to allow nodules to grow.”

Hebert argued that the nodules were found in the upper sediment layers because the rate of deposition slowed down enough after the Great Flood to allow the nodules to grown on them.

He said, “Batches of manganese nodules are just one of many geological features that are difficult for secular scientists to explain, but they make sense in light of the Genesis Flood.”

Polymetallic Manganese Nodlues

Christian News reports that Hebert is not the first Christian scientist who has argued that radiometric dating methods are flawed. A Christian geologist, Kenneth Patrick, came to a similar conclusion.

In article titled “Manganese nodules and the age of the ocean floor,” published 2010 in the Journal of Creation, Patrick wrote that “according to paleontological and radiometric dating methods, the nodules are supposedly multi-millions of years old, the result of extremely slow growth rates of just millimeters per million years. However, actual observations have revealed that nodules can grow in excess of 20cm within hundreds of years, a growth rate several orders of magnitude faster.”

He also concluded that the fact that nodules are found on the upper sediment layers of the ocean floor, “within the first 5 m” of the top layers, which contradicts the opinion of secular scientists that the sediments were formed over millions of years, but was in agreement with a theory based on biblical evidence that there was a period of very rapid sedimentation coinciding with the time of the Great Flood after which the rate of sedimentation returned to a normal slow rate.